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Month: December 2010

The highest criminal court in Texas last week halted an historic hearing in which lawyers for a man accused of murder and facing the death penalty argued that capital punishment is unconstitutional because it carries high risks that innocent people could be executed.

Lawyers for John Green this week presented in a Houston trial court evidence showing that Texas risks executing innocent people by relying on junk science, faulty eyewitness identification, unreliable informants, false confessions and other shoddy evidence. They cited two high-profile cases — those of Claude Jones and Cameron Todd Willingham — in which evidence has recently surfaced suggesting that both men executed by the state of Texas might well have been innocent of the crimes they were accused of committing.

Lawyers for Green say he is innocent and faces the risk of an unconstitutional execution. The appeals court’s ruling halted the hearing and gives the trial court and lawyers for Green 15 days to respond to a motion by prosecutors to halt the ruling.

The appeals court’s decision represented at least a temporary victory for prosecutors, who have repeatedly tried to avoid a hearing on this crucial issue.

Second, they asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to stop the hearing last month. In an order issued last week, that court refused to do so. Once the hearing started on Monday, the prosecutors refused to participate. And now the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has changed its mind.

Regrettably, the Green prosecutors’ actions are part of a larger pattern of prosecutors and state officials turning a blind eye to these risks of executing the innocent. When Texas executed Claude Jones in 2000, then-Governor George W. Bush denied his clemency application, but did not know that Jones had requested DNA testing on the only piece of physical evidence tying Jones to the crime — a hair recovered from the victim which state experts said belonged to Jones. Texas executed Jones without allowing him to have the hair tested. Recent DNA testing — accomplished despite the state’s strenuous objection — has conclusively revealed that the hair on which Claude Jones was executed was not his — it was the victim’s.

That is a travesty because prosecutors are charged with seeking the truth and upholding justice. For the sake of John Green and all of society, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will not acquiesce in the prosecutors’ efforts to hide the truth about this life and death issue.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas around our office. Not just because we are planning our annual party but because Christmas cards arrive daily. Some wish us Christmas blessings. We also receive cards in the spirit of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. We welcome and cherish them all, although we want to clear up an apparent misunderstanding. We receive some Christmas cards that state a mistaken impression that the ACLU of Texas has something against Christmas. Not so. We love Christmas. We close our offices on Christmas Eve and stay closed until after New Year’s. That’s our right. Your business may want to stay open. And that’s your right.

Christmas displays — including nativity scenes — are also your right as well as long as they’re in or around businesses, homes and churches. This religious expression is a valued and protected part of the First Amendment rights guaranteed to all citizens, rights we strongly believe in at the ACLU of Texas. Governments, however, should not be in the business of endorsing religious displays of any kind. Religion belongs where it prospers best: with individuals, families and religious communities.

That said, as a seasonal greeting, let us add: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa Yenu Iwe Na Heri, and happy holidays from the ACLU of Texas!